Have you ever taken a trip without your kids?

[Eeyoreloverforever]

I would like to, but my concience(sp?) wouldn't let me do it. Besides Dh and I don't think that it is right. Some day our kids will be grown and that will be the time for vacations without kids, not now.

 

[laceemouse]

I tend to agree with you. I am probaly older than most moms on this board. DH an I will be married 17 years on 12/12! Our kids are 13, 11, 9, and 7. We have never gone anywhere without them. We don't even go out to dinner without them. Now that my 2 oldest girls babysit, we really could do dinner and a movie and leave them here, but when we talk about it they all want to come with us! We talk about how nice it would be to go to WDW alone, but the kids would have a FIT! I have to tell you that the years do pass quickly. My oldest starts High School next year and I can not believe it! DH and I talk all the time about how nice it will be to have an empty nest LOL!!! While I agree that couple time is very important, and keeping our marriage strong is the best gift we can give our kids, we really feel that we can wait a few more years and then we will have lots of alone time ( and probably really miss the little buggers!) Lacee P.S. We really don't have anyone we could leave the kids with that we could trust and that would not absolutely go nuts having to take care of our crew. I guess I might feel differently if my kids had grandparents that they would love to stay with.

 

[metivier]

I would NEVER take a trip to the World without my children! Like laceemouse, I'm an "older mom" even though my children are young (ages 3 years and almost 1 year). We did our traveling as a couple already (we'll celebrate 14 years of wedded bliss in April) -- now it's time to see the delight through their eyes!

 

[Simba's Girl]

My kids could stay with thier grandparents. They have actually when we helped drive my parents cars down to FL last summer. We did end up spending an extra day at Disney but...every time we went someplace the next thing out of our mouths was...Hayley would Love this...I wonder what Ashlynn would think about this? Never again will I do Disney without the kids!

We are thinking about taking a week together, alone, in the comming years. When we were younger, before kids we couldn't afford to travel much.

Heather

 

[mareed]

Absolutely! For the last 3 years, we've taken an anniversary trip on our own to Disneyland or Disneyworld and our 2 DS's have stayed with Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, & cousins being spoiled rotten. I will say that we've also taken at least 2 trips per year with them to Disney and we've also had Sea World Annual Passes for the last 3 years where we do 2-3 day long weekend trips with them also, so we do plenty of vacationing with them. They do know that we go to Disney without them, and they've never expressed a desire to go along with us. They have a blast staying with relatives while we go, and my DH and I look forward to our time alone very much.

I will say that if it were a once in a lifetime trip, or only on a rare occasion that we took a Disney vacation, I probably would not go without them. It seems like when we're on our own at Disney, for every 1 time we're doing something where we express the thought that we wish the kids were with us, there's 9 other things we've done where we were so glad to be alone. This lets us focus on things like Pleasure Island, and just touring the park differently than when the kids are with us. We still go to character meals and do photos with the characters and visit Fantasyland when we're on our own though! Disney without kids is a great vacation!

 

[golfgal]

We take at least one trip/year without kids. Time alone for Dh and I is just as important, if not MORE important as time with the kids. There is no guarentee that when your kids are grown that you will have the ability to travel without them. In our case the kids get to spend a week being spoiled by their grandparents and we get some couple time. Everyone is happy. I most likely would not go to Disney without kids, but we go elsewhere without them.

 

[luvmy2sams]

DH and I are taking our first trip without the kids at the end of December. We're celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary on New Year's Eve, and we felt that the occasion more than justifies leaving the kiddos with grandma and papa for a few days.

If this were a once in a lifetime trip, then we'd definitely plan to include our kids. However, we just returned from a family trip in October, and we're planning a surprise trip for our DD's 7th birthday in January 2006. They can live without the mouse for a few months.

 

[Sandyincanada]

We finally took our first trip by ourselves to the Domincan Republic last summer, it was great but our kids are 15 and 18, lol. We've always taken them everywhere else prior to this. I don't think I could go to Disneyworld without them though, just wouldn't feel right to me. I'm hoping that feeling will go away once they are both out of the house...I'd love to take the time to do Epcot right.

 

[disneyfreakjackie]

We just did it this past May. (We had orginally planned on doing the Disney cruise (just me and DH) in 2002, but after 9/11 cancelled it and booked a trip for all of us in WDW. That was the girls SURPRISE trip!) So, two years later we decided to go for it! We had just had a family trip to WDW in December, 2003 so it wasn't like the kids were being deprived!!

Anyway, we had a wonderful time. I did miss the girls a lot, but they were at our home with my sister so they didn't have to miss school again. They also had a great time!!

 

[F1Julie]

Would I take a trip somewhere without DD? Yes I have and would do it again. Would I go to WDW without DD? Never in a million years. If I'm vacationing without my child I don't want to go to her favorite destination. She'd never forgive me for that one! Plus, if I'm going on an adult vacation, I'm not going to go to a kid/family destination. Give me Vegas, Paris, the Carribean, Bermuda... The list goes on and on but Disney isn't on it. For me, Disney is all about kids and families.

 

[sharonb]

We celebrated our anniversary in Disney and left our 2 1/2 year old son at his grandparents farm. We had a great time-went to great restaurants and saw shows that he would definately not enjoyed and stayed out late dancing at pleasure island-it was our first real getaway since he was born and we had a blast.
We now have three kids and are heading there as a family next week and I can't wait-it will be such a different experience and so much fun. He, by the way, had a great time at the farm, and talked about his visit there for months.
Go, have fun, and don't feel guilty. Disney will always be there for you and your family.

 

[Wickedmom75]

Hubby and I went last September for an early 10 year anniversary as a sort of honeymoon since we did not have one when we got married, our youngest was 3 at the time and our oldest 9 we have a total of four. We had taken a previous trip as a family (with 11 other family members) the summer before so did not feel too guilty about it. The military discount( member free, other 99$) helped as did us getting 20.03 a night for the 4 nights we stayed at the then DTD Courtyard by Marriott. Hubby is in the Navy and is gone A LOT!!! So we thought some alone time would be good for us, the kids had a blast with their Nana and Poppa spoiling them ,they look at the pics we took and are happy for us. We had a great time and thought about them constantly!! So go if you have the resources to help out with the childminding then definietly go for it

 

[lindaso]

We almost did. This past October we decided to take our first couple trip in 7 years. WDW was on our list of possibilities but DH was firmly against it. He didn't feel he could have fun there without the kids. Ultimately he said it was up to me and if I really wanted WDW he would be fine with it. After much thought, we went to Vegas...and had a BLAST. It was so nice to reconnect for 4 days just the 2 of us. I came home relaxed and de-stressed...until my DS broke his arm 3 days after we got home

 

[Tarzan]

I think it all depends how often you visit as a family, and how far you have to travel. I live in England so we can't just pop over for the weekend. I briefly considered going to Disneyland Paris without the children for my 5th anniversary in december this year, but I would feel so guilty. As previous posters have said, I would always be thinking about how much the children would enjoy it. I am probably a much younger mum that most posters (26 with a DS-6, DD-5 and DD-5months) but I still wouldn't consider leaving them. They do have 2 sets of grandparents that they would love to stay with, plus lots of aunts and uncles, I just couldn't leave them to visit WDW.

 

[crisi]

We've left our kids - well, actually - they leave us to vacation with Grandma at the lake for a few days, and we take advantage of our childless state to flee town. Sometimes we plan the fleeing part first - but the kids don't need to know that. Most times, though, we just sit at home while our kids have a great time at the lake.

We haven't done WDW, but we might. They don't need to know that is where we are going. We've talked about it for our tenth anniversary - a short four day trip. And we might - it will be several years before our kids are old enough that we can have adult time at WDW - and this year will probably be the last we can slip WDW under the radar.

 

[Brian Noble]

DW and I spent three days in Switzerland this summer sans kids---I was on a business trip to EPFL, and DW came too---it was easy to leave the kids, though, since an overseas trip for only a few days would be a time-zone challenge to kids on a schedule. We've also gone on a weekend trip to our home park without bringing the kids along, but we go at least once a month in season, so it was no big deal for them to miss "only once."

Once your kids are old enough to stay with grandma/aunt flo/whoever, I think it's perfectly fine and probably healthy for you and your partner to take a trip without them from time to time. And, if that trip happens to be to WDW, that's just where you want to go. Take the kiddos along next time.

 

[kjasmin]

Well, for the Halloween trip, I had to leave my daughter home (Ex-wife said no). Telling her was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. She broke out in tears! Believe me, I fought till the end! Both dw and myself agreed to never do that again!

 

[Sleepy]

We have done 3 Disney vacations. Would have been more, but deployments and now living overseas keeps us from going again. Anyway, our first vacation was our very first family vacation. Our son was 7 years old at the time. We spent 2 weeks total there. Had a blast. Hubby and I said a few times...Gee, wish we could come alone so we could ride the rides our son was either too short for or was too scared to ride. We had the second family Vacation 2 years later. This one was to be with my parents and my brother and his wife. Things happened and my parents did not go, so we decided to continue with the March vacation and make it an adult trip and then have another vacation that summer with our son. We were there a week with no kid. While we were able to enjoy those roller coasters, everything else we rode, all we kept saying was....Gee, wish Trev was with us.....Man, if only Trev could see this, etc. We were miserable. We had less fun without him. Don't think we will ever do that again until he grows up. Maybe if we had lots of kids, a break would be needed, but we only have one and he is a good quiet kid.

 

[HALEYSMOMMOM]

I tend to agree with the first couple of posters on this, as well as some of the rest of you. I could never do this. We also won't even go out to eat without our kids. I have the same philosophy-we'll have plenty of time later to be alone and then we will miss them terribly. Now is family time, when your kids actually WANT to be with you. Our problem is my MIL keeps pressuring us to let DD5 spend the night, etc. and she doesn't want to, and we don't want her to. We also have a DS 20 mon that no attention is paid to and none is paid to us, the parents, either. It has really caused a family rift, all because we want to spend lots of time with our kids. Sorry to vent.

 

[Amirah95]

I go on vacation once a year with my best friends, but DH doesn't. He stays home DD. Since we had our DD9 we take her everywhere we go.